


A Reminder of Us

by glackedandmullered



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Talk of Character Death, not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:12:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1989378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glackedandmullered/pseuds/glackedandmullered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were disappearing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Reminder of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: One of them has a photograph of them all, and is going around trying to find the others. Unfortunately, when one of them is killed, they disappear from the photo. The person with the photo runs around trying to find them all before the photo is of just them.

The photo is crumpled.

Old, torn, and tattered at the edges. It had been passed from hand to hand until it finally returned to Michaels possession, never showing the face of someone from the image until it found him. He was in the centre, face splitting grin playing on his lips, seconds from doubling over from something the boy next to him had said. He looked so young in the photo, they all did. It made sense, it had been nearly 10 years since it had been taken, after all.

Gavin, that was the name of the boy making him laugh. He had come all the way from England to be there, at the company. He had a big nose, scruffy hair, and a garbled vocabulary that took a while to get used to; but once they had, they couldn’t live without it. Beside him was Ray, undoubtedly the best friend Michael had ever made. When they first met, he had been the quietest; with his scruffy dark hair and glasses, gaming over xbox live from his home on the other side of the river to Michael, he had turned out to be a surprising wild fire, coming out of his shell after a few weeks on the microphone. When they started working together it had been a riot.

The three looking on in the picture were Geoff, Ryan and Jack. The Gents, the older ones, the protectors. Though Geoff was more of a child that any of the lads and Ryan, with his creepy gamer persona, had his own type of fun. Jack was the cuddly teddybear with a heart of gold that kept a close eye on everyone, the real head of the team though he let Geoff think differently.

The relationship had come as a surprise, quite a shock to everyone really. Starting with a drunken kiss shared between Ryan and Gavin, they got together when they realised they still felt the same while sober. Surprisingly it was Ray who was the next to join, they admitted it felt unusual, having three in a relationship, but they all fit so perfectly together.

Jack and Michael sort of…fell into the whole thing. After months of darting around one another, hinting glances and hopeful looks filling the space inside the office walls, Michael finally took charge and locked them all in a room, and just let it all out. It was explosion of feelings that threw everyone into a void for a few anxious days; but at the end of it all, three became four and five shortly after.

Long conversations in the office ended with them figuring out that this had always been the eventuality, everything had been leading up to this, and it was in everyone’s best interests to give it a shot. Still, one was missing.

Geoff had fears, concerns that he was too old and too messed up for them, but they soon put a rest to those worries. Showering him with gifts and touches, following him home and cuddling close to him on his own couch before he came around to their advances.

For a while, it was perfect.

How it ended, Michael couldn’t say. He just knows that one day he woke up halfway across the world, on a hard, sterilised hospital bed. He couldn’t remember their numbers but he remembered their names. He knew they were in Austin Texas and he just had to get back there.

He was in France. That’s what he learnt almost immediately upon waking. In a city called Roanne, south of Paris. The hospital was tucked away off the main streets, he was visited twice a day for a week by a doctor who said he had collapsed on the front step 3 weeks before he awoke. He had no idea how long he had been in France before that, or anywhere for that matter, why had he left Austin? Why had he left _them_? That building was where he started his journey, a backpack the only thing in his possession. Empty apart from a wallet with barely $20 stuffed into one of the sections, as crumpled as the only other thing in the inner pocket, the photo.

He could just about remember posing for it. They were stood outside the old office, before they moved to a studio, he thought wistfully. One last picture of where they all met, where their relationship started; though none of them were really the sentimental types, it had just made sense to have a little souvenir to look back on later.

It took a few days to make it across the country, he had to take risks with hitch hiking, and made it to Calais with just enough to get a meal at the port, not nearly enough for a ferry or train ticket. Fourteen days he worked for a guy who needed an electrician quick and with no questions asked. Michael was waved off dismissively when he tried to explain his credentials, he wasn’t sure if the Frenchman even understood him beyond “I can fix that for you.”

Two weeks later and €120 in pocket, he got on the Eurostar to Dover, England. He vaguely thought about the fact that this was his first time in England, his own boyfriends home country yet he had never stepped foot on British soil until today.

In London there was something wrong with the image. As he perched on a park bench, the photo held tightly in his hands, he could see Ryan’s figure looking a little…off. He almost appeared to be fading, the backdrop of the RoosterTeeth sign starting to show through his upper chest. Assuming it was the light, Michael ducked into the shade under a large tree and examined the picture more carefully. Still it was the same. Fading, maybe even more than before. He couldn’t figure it out, and spent the whole day trying to do so. He took it to a camera store, asking an oblivious man behind the counter to explain it to him, but even he as a so called ‘expert’ couldn’t tell him why it was happening.

It gave Michael a sense of dread in his gut.

He fell asleep staring at the vanishing image, and dreamed of the men for the first time since he had left them. He heard a voice laughing, a joke passed around a crowded room, his own laughter echoing behind. A voice calling his name, loud at first before fading, quieter…quieter…until it was no longer there.

Ryan.

He woke with a jolt and pulled the photo out from underneath him.

Gone.

The other 5 still smiling, still laughing, unaware of the man who once stood beside them. Frozen in time, in the moment when everything was perfect.

Ray took a week to vanish.

While Michael worked to save up for a plane ticket out of there, Ray faded. While Michael searched high and low for the next way to earn some cash, Ray was disappearing before his eyes. Both on the picture and in his head. Again it was the nights when he saw it the most, faces haunting him, blurred and so out of focus that without the voice Michael wouldn’t know who was haunting him.

The barely concealed panic kept him up most nights, none of this made sense, not even a little bit. Though he couldn’t help feeling like he knew why they were slowly leaving the photo. He just didn’t want to admit it.

Jack was gone in the blink of an eye.

There was no lead up to his loss, not even a second. He was just there when Michael checked the photo in the morning, and by breakfast, the man was missing. Michael mourned the loss harder than any of the previous two. With them he could take his time to deal with what was going on, he could dedicate just a little while to sit back and think about their time together and, coupled with the dreams, he didn’t really feel like he was losing them. Jack was a shot to the chest. A bullet right through his heart tearing a jagged bloodied path.

The plane was over New York when he noticed the first flicker of Gavin.

Tearing down the aisle into the tiny, cramped bathroom, he clutched the photo to his chest and whimpered. Mumbling no no please no to whoever was listening, as if someone actually was. He tucked his knees up to his stomach and sobbed until the flight attendants crashed through the door, after several failed attempts at getting him to answer. He was dragged out, the photo getting even more crumpled in his fist, and promised the uniformed workers that he was okay, it was just an emotional day. He promised them while his heart shattered.

Flicker.

Fade

He was over Austin, sliding down onto the landing strip but he couldn’t take his eyes off the photo.

Flicker.

Fade.

In the taxi on his way to the office, where he _hoped_ the office still stood. He begged and pleaded with the sky to keep him there just a little longer.

No luck.

Flicker.

Fade.

Flicker.

Gone.

Just like that the only ones left in the photo were Geoff and himself. The oldest Gent had been on the furthest right of the frame, but now with everyone else gone, Michael could see that his attention wasn’t on the camera. It was on the lads, specifically the tiny image of himself. Michael. Geoff wasn’t even attempting to hide the look of love on his face as he watched the antics before him and that made Michael well up more than he had in any of the situations so far.

As it turned out, RoosterTeeth was no longer at Studio 5. Hadn’t been for almost a year. There was a number left at the desk for Burnie which he rang. The older man practically bawled down the line when he realised who was speaking, he told Michael that he had just disappeared one day almost eighteen months ago. The achievement hunter guys had been out of the office for four days and when they returned, Michael hadn’t been with them and he couldn’t get a word out of any of them as to what had happened.

He asked where Geoff was.

Burnie told him with sorrow in his voice.

A hospital in Miami. Of all the places he could have found Geoff, this was the last place he could wish for.

The nurse directed him to a room in the back, sterilized and brilliant white just as his own had been, all those weeks ago in France. It was crazy to think back and realise it really had only been a number of weeks, so much had happened.

Geoff was propped up in bed, machines beeping periodically to his side, and a nasal cannula nestled above his lip. He was shaved, smooth as a baby with no hint of the kick-ass facial hair he used to sport. He was also pale, very pale and, though Michael could only see his upper chest and arms, from what he _could_ see, he was all skin and bone. He barely looked like he had the energy to move his head to look at Michael as the man edged nervously into the sun-lit room. The window faced the ocean, a line of palm trees framing the light in a way that was more beautiful than Michael had ever seen.

“Michael.” Geoff breathed, a smile appearing on his weathered face, and Michael hated to admit it but it looked like the skin hadn’t moved in that way for quite a while.

“Hi, Geoff.” He whispered, as if speaking any louder would crack the sickly man like porcelain, stepping closer to the bed he reached out to take one of Geoff’s skeletal hands into his own warm ones.

"Where were you?" The sadness and pain was evident in his words, and guilt bubbled up through Michael’s whole body, taking him in hand and dragging him down. It hurt even more that he couldn’t tell Geoff anything, because he knew just about as much as the man in the bed.

“That doesn’t matter now does it? I’m back.” Geoff shook his head, hand tightening in Michael’s just for a second, wavering in place as if that one simple movement had thrown him completely out of himself.

“We… We looked for you.” Michael winced for him, his voice so hoarse it sounded like it must _hurt_. 

"Not very hard I guess." He tried to joke but Geoff’s face crumpled with tears and Michael could tell this was no time for jokes. He pulled the photo from his back pocket, smoothing it out on his knee before placing it on Geoff’s lap. He picked it up, holding it close to his face with a knowing look in his eyes.

“Where are they?” Michael asked quietly.

Geoff drew in a wheezy breath, the machine beside him whining and whooshing air. Michael mentally begged him not to say the words he feared were coming. He didn’t want it to be true, it couldn’t be.

“They’re all dead, Michael.”


End file.
